Optimizing communication for autonomous vehicles

• US 10,021,614 B2
• Filed: 01/31/2017
• Issued: 07/10/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 12/08/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Aurora Operations Incorporated (Aurora Innovation, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Uber Technologies, Inc.
• Inventors: Ross, William, Aitken, Michael
• Primary Examiner(s): Wong, Warner
• Application Number:
  US15/420,932
• Publication Number:
  US 20170164257A1
• Time in Patent Office: 525 Days
• Field of Search: 370330, 370232
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/40 Business processes related to the transportation industry shipping G06Q10/083
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/04 specially adapted for terminals or networks with limited capabilities; specially adapted for terminal portability
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/12 specially adapted for proprietary or special-purpose networking environments, e.g. medical networks, sensor networks, networks in vehicles or remote metering networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/52 specially adapted for the location of the user terminal
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/60 Scheduling or organising the servicing of application requests, e.g. requests for application data transmissions using the analysis and optimisation of the required network resources admission control or resource allocation H04L47/70
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/61 taking into account QoS or priority requirements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/26 Special purpose or proprietary protocols or architectures network applications for proprietary or special purpose networking environments H04L67/12
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 16/18 Network planning tools
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/08 Testing, supervising or monitoring using real traffic
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 36/1446 wherein at least one of the networks is unlicensed
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/023 using mutual or relative location information between multiple location based services [LBS] targets or of distance thresholds
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/025 using location based information parameters
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/40 for vehicles, e.g. vehicle-to-pedestrians [V2P]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/44 for communication between vehicles and infrastructures, e.g. vehicle-to-cloud [V2C] or vehicle-to-home [V2H]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/80 Services using short range communication, e.g. near-field communication [NFC], radio-frequency identification [RFID] or low energy communication
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 48/16 Discovering, processing access restriction or access information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 72/542 using measured or perceived quality

Abstract

A system for managing network connections for AVs can store a spectrum heat map that indicates network coverage strength for networks throughout a given region. The system can identify a travel route for a selected AV. Using the spectrum heat map, the system can determine a connection schedule for the selected AV. The connection schedule can indicate location points along the travel route at which the selected AV is to switch from previous network connections to succeeding network connections. The system may then transmit the connection schedule to the selected AV to enable the selected AV to switch network connections at the location points along the travel route.

Claims

1. A system for communicating with a plurality of autonomous vehicles (AVs) operating throughout a given region, the system comprising:

one or more processors; and

one or more memory resources storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the system to;

store a spectrum heat map in the one or more memory resources, the spectrum heat map indicating network coverage strength for available networks throughout the given region;

identify a travel route for a selected one of the plurality of AVs;

using the spectrum heat map, determine a connection schedule for the selected AV, the connection schedule indicating location points along the travel route at which the selected AV is to switch from previous network connections to succeeding network connections; and

transmit the connection schedule to the selected AV to enable the selected AV to switch network connections at the location points along the travel route;

wherein the executed instructions cause the system to further determine the connection schedule by identifying, using the spectrum heat map, a string of networks along the travel route, wherein each network in the string of networks represents a network having a highest bandwidth among respective available networks at a corresponding location point of the location points along the travel route.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the networks indicated on the spectrum heat map comprise one or more of a 3G, a 4G, a long-term evolution (LTE), or a WiFi network.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the networks indicated on the spectrum heat map comprise one or more of a WiMax, a WiGig, or a dedicated short range communications (DSRC) network.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the networks indicated on the spectrum heat map comprise a 900 MHz band network.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the executed instructions further cause the system to:

receive a pick-up request from a requesting user in the given region;

in response to receiving the pick-up request, identify that the selected AV is proximate to a pick-up location identified in the pick-up request; and

instruct the selected AV to travel to the pick-up location to service the pick-up request.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein the pick-up request further includes a destination, and wherein the travel route comprises a route from the pick-up location to the destination.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the executed instructions further cause the system to:

receive network quality data for each of the networks from the plurality of AVs traveling throughout the given region; and

dynamically update the spectrum heat map based on the received network quality data.

8. A computer-implemented method for managing network connections for a plurality of autonomous vehicles (AVs) operating throughout a given region, the method being performed by one or more processors and comprising:

storing a spectrum heat map indicating network coverage strength for networks throughout the given region;

identifying a travel route for a selected one of the plurality of AVs;

using the spectrum heat map, determining a connection schedule for the selected AV, the connection schedule indicating location points along the travel route at which the selected AV is to switch from previous network connections to succeeding network connections; and

transmitting the connection schedule to the selected AV to enable the selected AV to switch connections at the location points along the travel route;

wherein determining the connection schedule comprises identifying, using the spectrum heat map, a string of networks along the travel route, wherein each network in the string of networks represents a network having a highest bandwidth among respective available networks at a corresponding location point of the location points along the travel route.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the networks indicated on the spectrum heat map comprise one or more of a 3G, a 4G, a long-term evolution (LTE), or a WiFi network.

10. The method of claim 8, wherein the networks indicated on the spectrum heat map comprise one or more of a WiMax, a WiGig, or a dedicated short range communications (DSRC) network.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein the networks indicated on the spectrum heat map comprise a 900 MHz band network.

12. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

receiving a pick-up request from a requesting user in the given region;

in response to receiving the pick-up request, identifying that the selected AV is proximate to a pick-up location identified in the pick-up request; and

instructing the selected AV to travel to the pick-up location to service the pick-up request.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the pick-up request further includes a destination, and wherein the travel route comprises a route from the pick-up location to the destination.

14. The method of claim 8, further comprising:

receiving network quality data for each of the networks from the plurality of AVs traveling throughout the given region; and

dynamically updating the spectrum heat map based on the received network quality data.

15. A non-transitory computer readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to:

store a spectrum heat map indicating network coverage strength for networks throughout a given region;

identify a travel route for a selected one of a plurality of AVs operating throughout the given region;

using the spectrum heat map, determine a connection schedule for the selected AV, the connection schedule indicating location points along the travel route at which the selected AV is to switch from previous network connections to succeeding network connections; and

transmit the connection schedule to the selected AV to enable the selected AV to switch connections at the location points along the travel route;

wherein the executed instructions cause the one or more processors to further determine the connection schedule by identifying, using the spectrum heat map, a string of networks along the travel route, wherein each network in the string of networks represents a network having a highest bandwidth among respective available networks at a corresponding location point of the location points along the travel route.

16. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 15, wherein the networks indicated on the spectrum heat map comprise one or more of a 3G, 4G, long-term evolution (LTE), WiFi, WiMax, WiGig, dedicated short range communications (DSRC), or a 900 MHz band network.

17. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 15, wherein the executed instructions further cause the one or more processors to:

receive network quality data for each of the networks from the plurality of AVs traveling throughout the given region; and

dynamically update the spectrum heat map based on the received network quality data.